


The Affliction

by STANFORDSAMKINK (avagrace)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dean just goes along with it because he loves sam, M/M, Serial Killer Dean, Serial Killer Sam, Serial Killers, Wincest - Freeform, sam wants to kill, serial killer au with canon personalities, takes place after 1.09, their characters are more similar to canon, theyre trying to find John
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-05-29 13:36:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6377590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avagrace/pseuds/STANFORDSAMKINK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam is sick. He always has been. His oldest sickness, ingrained in his very self, is how irrevocably and how wrongly he loves his brother. His second is how furiously he needs to see innocent people die. He broke his brother's heart to find how he craves blood like the taste of Dean's lips, but Dean gave up goodness just because he loves Sam. It can't last forever, but for now two boys too in love roam empty roads with shining blades and a thirst for the unspeakable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Symptoms

**Author's Note:**

> I love serial killer au fics, but I find a lot show Sam and Dean as too unlike their canon selves, so I'm doing my best to maintain characters true to the show whilst portraying the au.

Sam remembers his first kill as much as the next man. He couldn't tell you if the sun yawned above him or if darkness cloaked his deeds. He couldn't tell you whether he sweated below his shirt or if the rain washed blood from his hands. He couldn't tell you if the air rung with screams or if the kid died alone. He remembered the colours, though. Vivid red, startling, so crisp against the whiteness of the dying man, the dead man, the iridescence of Sam's knife reflecting sky, the cloth of the t-shirt bleeding dark. Green eyes, greener than Dean's, looking up at him. Hazy, dreamy shots, pallid and woozy like an indie film, gory grisly snapshots jerking before him like a Kubrick. Sam crying, Sam saying, 'I had to do it'. 'I know' said John. They left the body behind, running ruby tributaries into the ground. Dean held him in the motel room bed when Sam thought he'd turn away.

His second kill was quicker, calmer, easier. The woman's skin was black and went purple when his fingers danced at her neck. John didn't come. John was not there. Sam said nothing. They went back to a motel room with blue sheets on the bed and Dean buried the body for him.

The third was a want and not a need. It was like a ballet, a frenzied dance, fever dream, muscle memory. John never found out. Sam smiled sickly at Dean. They stood above the bones, giants, watched them burn together.

Sam had always been sick. Funny though, that Dean had learnt it. He remembered his brother sobbing on the bathroom floor when he told him he liked to hurt good people, his brother spitting sharp needled words at him when Sam spoke like brothers shouldn't speak, and now here was Dean licking blood off his brother's lips like it was the most natural thing in the world. 

'Been thinkin' maybe Dad woulda headed home' Sam said, clattering about in one corner of the motel room as Dean yawned on the edge of the bed. 

'We've just been home, kid. Don't you think Dad woulda flagged up some spirit-Mom's spirit-in his own house if he'd've been in Kansas?' Dean said, watching idly as Sam chewed cereal in one hand whilst performing other tasks. 

'No, I meant his home' Sam said. 'I just thought we could give it a try'

'Illinois?' Dean said, somewhat surprised. 'Well, I guess so. Worth a try' he paused. 'We're only getting further away from California, though, kid' His voice softens, caters to Sam in that soft powder baby way. 

Sam shakes his head. 'We're finding Dad, Dean'

'You sure? We can easily swing by, kid, see your friends-your girl...' Dean won't choke on his words, won't admit it, won't allow Sam to relive that awful crumbling on his face the night he arrived at Sam's door and a tiny blonde thing wandered out of the bedroom. 

'She's not my girl, Dean' Sam sighs, trying to erase the edge in his voice. 

Dean shrugs. 

'You're m'girl' Sam smirks though a mouthful of muesli or whatever shit he deems edible. 

'Is that so?' Dean replies, voice a warning and an invitation. 

Sam's bowl clatters on the surface as he dances across to Dean, straddles his brother even though he's far too big for this now. Their mouths brush today languidly, but Sam doesn't feel that itch anymore like he used to, when Dean'd tell him that was so wrong and so bad, for them to kiss, even as his hand fumbled in his little brother's jeans. Sam can feel him now, his stupid sweatpants a thin layer between them as they kiss like fucking teenagers, kiss cruel and bitter and bad, like the way they are. 

Sam grasps at Dean's crotch, hand sliding under two layers of waistbands and his hand winds idly around the base of Dean's cock as though it's just a vague, distant idea he's thought of, the other hand lifting from where it's clawing at Dean's hair to push his soft sweatpants and wrinkled boxers downwards, allowing himself a better grip to jerk Dean off lazily, sweetly, languid like honey. 

Dean stutters against his mouth, tongue sliding away from Sam's, air escaping between them as Dean breathes harder, Sam's mouth softening, sliding lazy against his, but his fist fierce on Dean's cock. Dean grasps his arm subconsciously, the noises he's barely suppressing fluttering between them, Sam driving his hips into Dean's thigh. 

'Good boy, Dean' Sam murmurs, ducking his head for a moment to catch a breath, wetness of his lips resting on Dean's neck. 'Good boy for me, aren't you'

'Huh, Sam' Dean chokes, tilting his head, Sam's strong arm rolling back and his wrist furious, Dean gasping tiny fragile little flutters at Sam's neck. He comes with Sam's palm wide and warm dragging the length of his cock, smoothing over the head, Dean'smouth drifting across Sam's idly, relenting for a kiss when Sam pushes forward, both of them falling apart in different ways. 

Fifteen year old Sam died because his brother was kissing him, finally, no, that's sick, Sam, that's sick, when their breaths ghosted together despite Dean's hands everywhere a brother's shouldn't be, twenty year old Sam died because his brother would never kiss him again, his brother wouldn't kiss him at the doorway when Sam  said he loved him because that's sick, sick, sick, Sam, twenty two year old Sam died because his brother was here and melting into him and kissing him first and they were both so irrevocably sick.

 Their first kiss had been drunken and heady and sweet, but it hadn't gotten any clearer, the taste of Dean's breath fogging Sam and erasing his composure. Sure, it was a little easier to think now knowing Dean wouldn't push him away or deny him in the morning or tell him he was wrong, but something about Dean scrambled Sam's brain. Sam breathed into him, their mouths sliding together, ghosting breath but not quite kissing because there's no rush anymore, no hurry, no leaving. It's the long haul, do or die. They've always been that, really. Just needed to realise it. 

'Gotta quit kissin', or we ain't gonna stop' Dean sighed gently. 

'You started it' Sam smirked, reluctant to resist but grateful he could catch his breath. 

'You started it all, Sam. S' your fault.' Dean mumbles, voice soft and thick, suggestive and sleepy like he's drunk, tips of his fingers drawing over Sam's skin. 

Sam can't deny that he 'started it', if they're going to be childish about it (which they probably are), but Dean had been the one to tell his little brother it was ok for them to touch at 3ams at midnights. Sam wasn't the one jerking his brother off in the back of the car or back of the cinema or under the table or in the same motel room as their father; that was Dean. God, it was always Dean. After they progressed from a weird mutual arrangement of two sweaty teenage boys in the same bed every night touching each other to something with more grace and grit, something with a name whether or not they spoke it, it became a sort of game. In the early days, they were terrified of Dad finding out, but eventually they'd constantly be nudging at each other's jeans under the table or deliberately groping on the sofa opposite from Dad or walking in and out of the shower slowly and carefully, flecked with water droplets, drawing pained glances from the other. 

Sam grins again at the thought, relieved for the moment that they don't have to hide, but despite all the trials and tribulations John has caused him, all the shouting and cruelty and harsh hands, all the punishment and heartache and the feeling of being second best to your own father, John is still his father. He's still someone who, at the end of the day, can hold Sam and make him feel loved, even if that feeling can never come within a mile of how Dean makes him feel. There's been a billion times Sam's thought he hated his father, a thousand when he's thought about killing him, but even Sam, Sam so sick and twisted and awful, cannot fathom it. Even a man who neglected him, who hurt him, who probably fucked him up royally enough to be a good percentage of the cause of Sam's grand corruptions; even John, Sam can't stop loving him. Just because he's a bad guy, of sorts, doesn't mean he doesn't understand love. The intensity of his thoughts buzz in his head, and the pop of Dean's thick bottom lip between his brings him back to clarity. Everything's black and white, Dean, Dean, Dean. 

They kiss hot and heavy and dirty, the way two boys with the same blood in a sleazy motel room kiss, they kissed sweet and languid and starry-eyed the way two souls meeting kiss. Dean shifting on his brother's lap and fingers digging in at his face, his kiss lazy and wet like a teenager. Sam drifted his hand through Dean's hair, releasing him. 

 'Shotgun first shower!'Dean cries, jumping off Sam's lap. Sam grasps at Dean's leg and tugs him to the floor, but Dean jams a fist into Sam's hip and scrambles to his feet, bolting the bathroom door with a triumphant cry. 

 'Dean, you dick!' Sam retorts, grinning. Dean deliberately lathers, rinses and repeats, and flashes his brother a huge sunshine smile, earning a few joked bitter exchanges before Sam jumps into the shower, and soon they'r e flying down the highway, dust rising like a reminder that yes, the Winchesters have been here, yes, you will remember, no, they will not leave anything at rest, nothing left undisturbed. 

It feels good to step into the car and slide out onto the highway, feel the glide of endless road beneath them. Sometimes it feels like it's all got to come to an end, like they're Mickey and Mallory, a few fiery weeks of passion and murder before it ceases, and sometimes it feels like the road just feeds on onto that sunset and they cannot end, just keep being

'Tell me about the first one, Sammy' said Dean, sighing like he'd asked Sam to recount their honeymoon, eyes on the road. 

They both know the story Sam's about to tell isn't his 'first'. Not his first kill, for sure, but his first murder. Not the first time he stole breath from a body, but the first time he did it for kicks. Not the first time he inhaled an exhale, but God damn, the first time he felt it cleanse him. 

'She was so clean' Sam says like a dream. 

Dean hummed happily.

'Kept touching my arm in the bar, kissin' my cheek. Real cute. I thought-Jesus-I thought, this is what it' s like to be Dean'

Dean laughed, turning down the radio, a tiny movement that made Sam feel so good. Even though it was just some mildly pleasant rock and hardly Zeppelin IV, Sam still glowed that Dean thought his words important enough to choose over his music. 

'So I took her back to the motel room. She wanted to go back to hers, but I liked thinking you'd sleep on the same bed where I fucked her'

Dean swallows audibly, and Sam's hand creeps across the seat, sweeping the burning bronze of Dean's face before sliding down. 'And she was bleedin' Dean added.

'She was embarrassed about that. All flushed, but I didn't mind. Had all this red on my fingers, touching her face, kissing her, kissing her blood. You woulda been proud of your baby brother. I fucked her good. She was all sweet and pretty, and smiling up at me, and I snapped her neck. Nice and fragile, she was still gaspin'. Stabbed her, too. That's what killed her. Gentle and graceful-like, Dean, it's like carving an angel from stone, you gotta be gentle. Blood everywhere. Rivers of it, red, red, red. She was so clean and sweet, and she fell apart in my arms'

Dean shut his eyes for a too-long second, groaning. 'Oh, Sammy' Sam' s fingers danced on the top of his thighs, teasingly because they'd just pulled up to the tiny supermarket. 

The cashier's face was set wrong, his eyes were too close together, he had a smattering of acne across his jaw, but Sam knew he'd look beautiful in death, in dying. Sometimes when he was bored, he'd play a stupid game in his head, guessing how best he would kill people. This kid grabbing sweets; maybe a knife to the throat, very gentle, enough to evoke a stream of red and a gurgle but not enough for instant death. The kid could watch Sam carve up his arms delicately, slice sweet slim streams in steady rows, or write runes with the tip of his blade.

The girl behind him in the queue. Make her lie beneath him and he'd take a knife up her spine, ultra-precision, separate her spine from her skin. Sam had always admired the spine, its elegance. If freed a little, it danced on its own like a leaf on the breeze. He itched to see the smooth whiteness of its sturdy marrow, the infrastructure of a body, to tilt back her head and expose the sharp notches running all the way down her body like rungs of a ladder. Maybe he'd very gently expose each rise of her spine, nudging them from beneath the nerves to allude thinness, a cruel joke.

The man hunched over the magazine rack. Sleek suit, too nice for a grimy store like this. Sam would find the big blue nerve on the inside of each thigh, draw his fingers up it and slice to point them out beautifully, grasp his hands into the squelch of red and buried muscle and yank the vibrant lines out like pulling up electric wires. The femoral artery spurted graciously when severed, in neat and steady bursts like some twisted fountain. The blood would spray up at Sam, leave that metallic taste on his lips, mark Dean's neck where he kissed.

None of these fantasies included Dean. He could never focus in his head if he imagined his brother bloodied and bruised, bloodying and bruising. Within his own head, Sam created solo fantasies, allowed the moment to be savoured when he got to kill with the boy he loved so badly, so fiercely, waited wistfully for the next desperate fuck covered in alien blood and gasping with the heat of maleficence.

 Right now, however, they dump packets of crisps and microwave meals and bottles of water before the cashier and run them through. Sam wishes him a nice day. 

'You itchin'?' Dean asks as they carry the stuff to the car and dump in on the backseat. There's no need to clarify. 

Sam nods. 'Usually am. But don't worry about it, we can sort it when we head on'

Dean catches his eye across the roof of the car from opposite sides. 'Wanna do one now?'

Sam snorts, sinking into the passenger side and Dean mirrors. 'What, in the light of day?'

Dean shrugs, gunning the engine. 'Why the hell not?'

'Uh, gee, Dean, maybe because I don't want to get caught?'

'We're hunters, Sam. We can handle one measly body.' 

'Don't you find it kind of ironic we keep hunting?'

Dean looks up and then back at the road. 

'I mean, what we do-on the side, I mean-is mindlessly immoral. Right? But then our day job is saving people. So what, they cancel each other out?' 

Dean muses this. 'I don't know, Sam. You wanna get a gig as a receptionist or something?'

Sam rolls his eyes. 

'What else do we know, Sammy? Hunting is who we are, even if we basically go against everything hunting stands for.'

Sam can't argue with that, so he reaches an arm behind him and opens a packet of crisps. It's 11am. At Stanford, he'd've had a banana or granola bar at this time, but five minutes with his brother and he's eating crap. Dean snaffles a few, of course, dropping crisp crumbs across Sam's lap. 

'Dean' Sam chides. 

Dean gives him a big, shit-eating grin, showing Sam a bunch of mush between his teeth. Sam shoves him, and Dean elbows him back, and they're so irrevocably brothers, why try and change it or wish it right?

Dean's good. Sam sees it in his eyes, his soft smile, the gentleness of his hands. 

Dean had given up morality for Sam. Everything he stood for, the righteous man, the good man, set aside to turn his back on the very essence of his being-saving, saving people from badness like them-so that he could come home at night and move sickly sweet with his brother, hot and slow and violent in the back of your throat like molasses. Dean's sweet sugar, and Sam is bitter, bitter, but better all the more to have Dean bruising under his fingertips. 

'You okay?' Dean murmurs, like he's saying it out of default. Probably is; caring for Sam is his automatic. Caring is his automatic. 

'Sure am' Sam smiles. 'I sure am'


	2. Infected

Sam Winchester knew two things; killing and Dean. They were equals in some ways; the rise of ribs beneath his fingers, some he would crush and some he would savour; the brush of lips, some that would worship him in dark motel rooms, some that would cling to his ear screaming for help before he run a blade thin to their throat; the feeling of hands, so many pairs clawing at his arms and grappling in the air, scratching hopelessly as they fell to death, one pair, just one, skimming gracelessly across his body, anywhere, everywhere that no boy with the same blood should touch another. 

He didn't feel wrong. He didn't feel ill or confused or damaged; except for maybe the times Dean used to call him these things, but those words were twisted up in the confusion of their feelings and Sam forgives them. Sam knows he isn't a good guy, per se, but he feels pretty normal. He likes to watch crap old films squidged up on the sofa, argues with his brother about whether to get Indian or Chinese takeout, really likes Bleach by Nirvana, daydreams about Palm trees, this morning he helped a woman pick up her shopping when she spilt it all over the pavement. He's just your run of the mill, average guy. 

On Tuesday, they run out of money. Credit card fraud seems like too much effort and not enough thrill, and maybe Dean can sense Sam would like a little something, and so they wait until the evening quiets down and their stomachs growl to head into town. It's some city just over the Mississippi as they head up through Missouri to Illinois, on the off chance John Winchester is hiding out there from the two boys he calls family. It's plausible. 

'Damn, Sammy, I'm tired' Dean says through a dramatised yawn, scrubbing at his face as they exit the car. 

'I'm not' Sam says, eyes glinting. Dean snorts and shoves him. 

'Would ya hang on for just a minute, kid?' He laughs, the noise echoing the twilight street. 

'Dean' Sam retorts, struggling to keep the whine out of his voice, so as to not defunct his complaint. 'I'm a little too old for you to call me 'kid' still'

Dean raises his eyes across Sam, eyebrows knotted in that pensive way. For a second, Sam's sure Dean'll agree. 

Instead, he ruffles Sam's hair and smirks that irritating smirk that makes Sam feel like a pining 12 year old. 'You're never too old for me to stop calling you kid, kiddo' 

'You know, it doesn't really mean a lot if you have to jump up to ruffle my hair, Dean!' Sam calls after him as he strides away, shaking his head. 

The bar they choose is sort of a pseudo-club, much busier than anywhere they'd pick to hang out for kicks. There's obviously the disadvantage that more people will see them, but half the people in here are under 25, and they figure probably off their heads on E or something. It's possibly a stupid move, but Dean vetoes and decides he'd far rather kill some wailing frat kid in the club than a calm guy at a sleazy bar. 

'Drink?' Dean nods, as they climb their way past people. 

'What?' Sam yells. 

'Drink?!'

'Dean, I can't hear you!' Sam strains over the music. 

'That's for goddamn sure!' Dean graps Sam's collar just because he can, and yanks his brother down to him. 'This place would make an innocent man feel like slicin' and dicin', huh?'

Sam shrugs, still unsure what the hell Dean's on about, but unwilling to pull back because his brother's breath is whispering on his ear. 

Dean grasps Sam by the elbow in order to drag him through the masses properly. He glimmers obligingly at the barmaid. 

'A whiskey, a scotch and 3 of those awful little Jell-O shots, if you don't mind' 

Dean downs the whiskey and moves for the scotch before Sam elbows him. 

'Alright, you got me' Dean fakes exasperation and Sam drinks the scotch. 

'Go on, you pick 'em. Know you want to' Dean leans back across the bar, poking at the luridly coloured shots. Bait. 

Sam already has his eye on someone. A mild boy in wire frame glasses; good looking and knows it, but calm, quiet, sat at the bar with a beer. It would make more sense if Sam wanted to kill the irritating sorority sisters or one of the homophobic idiots eyeing them up, but they didn't deserve it. They didn't deserve the beauty and honour of death and dying, didn't deserve the praise and salvation of being torn apart. 

'Him' 

Dean's grin splits his face wide. 'Whatever you say, man'

They have very little in the way of a plan or strategy, relying on good old charm and the unbearable atmosphere of this place in order to coax the kid out. 

The boy is mildly intimidated by the arrival of two men sidling up to his corner of the bar. Dean slides on the charm, but Sam slips into comfort, wanting to take care of him. 

'Hi' says Sam. 

The boys raises his eyebrows in such a slow way that it seems oddly impressive to Sam, the nonchalance, the quiet power in this raging loud place. 

'Hi' he returns. 

'I'm Sam' 

The boy regards him with interest. And intent. 'Charlie'

'Dean' says Dean in such a way. 

'For this kind of place, you seem sort of-'

'Tolerable?' Charlie says with a wry look. 'I'm more of a fan of beer than the atmosphere' he pauses. 'And the bartender'

Dean snorts. 'Can't argue with that'

'You go to school round here?' Sam asks. 

'Yeah, University of Missouri. Literature'

Sam smiles genuinely. He starts talking to the kid about his favourite novels, and Dean is grinning, leaning on the bar watching Sam talk animatedly with such a woozy look in his eyes that Sam's head hurts. 

Eventually, Dean gets bored. Of course. 

'Hey kid, you gotta room near here?'

Charlie smiles lazily, looking amused. 'Yeah, 'bout ten minutes'

Dean downs the forgotten Jell-O shot. 'Perfect'

The kid likes the car. Of course he does. They always do. 

'Was our Dad's' Dean says idly. 

'You two are brothers?' Charlie snorts. Sam eyes him in the wing mirror. 'Guess I kinda got a different vibe'

Dean half-laughs. 'Whatever vibe you got, probably ain't too far off'

Sam kicks at Dean's leg, cursing him for making the whole incest thing so apparent when it's still so easy for Charlie to bail. 

Charlie shrugs. 'Oh, 's like that' he pauses, fumbling in his jacket. 'Guess it don't bother me. Made out with my cousin once'

Dean laughs loud, passing Charlie his lighter. 

'You don't mind?' He asks, even though he's already got an unlit cigarette in his mouth. 

'Nah' Dean licks his lips. 'Light me one, wouldya'

As far as Sam knows, Dean hasn't smoked since he was nineteen or something, and although the smell of smoke curdling in the air of the Impala isn't totally foreign, it's unusual, makes Sam think he's a kid and John's giving a lift to some other hunter with a pack of Marlboros in his front pocket. 

'My rooms just here' Charlie nods, breathing grey wisps, and Dean pulls up. It really is just a room Charlie has, but he's a student, anyway. There’s a heavy pause, the air swelling with the words about to be said.

‘You guys wanna come in for a drink?’

Dean grins, and so does Sam, one grin broad and tantalising, one grin sickly sweet and twisted. They follow Charlie up the dark dusty staircase and to the second apartment. There’s an old wire frame bed strewn with clothes and stacks of paperbacks like the cities Sam and Dean would build in towers of John’s research books when they were young and bored easily with the print inside. This kid’s pure college; I mean, Sam can see at least 3 Kerouacs lying around.

‘Sorry about, uh’ Charlie sweeps his arm to indicate the room.

‘No, it’s pretty cool’ says Dean, somewhat surprising Sam. Charlie pours out three glasses of what Sam believes is bourbon, gives his tongue that heavy feeling and his eyes feel sleepy, woozy, like a dream. Killing always feels like a dream.

Sam sits in the only chair in the room and watches Dean kiss Charlie, drift his warm hand up his shirt. Sam drains his glass and watches calmly, assessing, preparing. Dean lowers Charlie on the mattress and Sam rises, feels his blood rush and hum, feels so powerful. He’s tall, strong, undefeatable. Nothing can touch him. He is infallible.

‘Anyone else live here, Charlie?’ Sam asks.

He lifts his head from Dean’s neck-Sam blazes, his skin, his golden boy-and Charlie looks up at him, so small beneath Sam’s endlessness.

‘Uh, there’s a sweet little old lady upstairs, but don’t sweat it, she’s deaf as hell. And the woman below, well-oldest profession in the world if you get me. She’s hardly in’

Sam smiles. ‘Wonderful’. The word is weighty.

‘You don’ mind if we tie you up a little, do you?’ Dean says in dulcet tones, procuring a length of rope from his jacket, which he then sheds to the floor.

Charlie looks apprehensive, and rightly so. If the kid’s seen any Criminal Minds recently, he’ll probably have a lightbulb moment and realise that these two strange, twisted men wanting him restrained is not a promising sign.

He nods. Smart kid. Sam sinks onto the bed, above Charlie, his leg resting across Dean’s the way they’re both knelt, twins, powerful and heavy above this boy who suddenly looks so pale and young. Sam removes Charlie’s shirt and drops his bare arm into Dean’s palm so he can secure him to the edge of the bed. Dean twists away so Charlie can’t see the blade he uses to slice the rope in two, and hands the other half to Sam.

Sam slides down the bed, not dropping his eyes from Charlie’s as he takes off his jeans with care. They’re unusual, thin gold like sun is shining through them, kind of the colour of the bottle of Jim Beam still sat on the counter. Sam winds the rope around his leg, loose enough so its comfortable, so Charlie doesn’t suspect, not quite yet, his imminent death, but in this moment Sam blesses John Winchester for his crazed military rituals drummed into them like gospel so that Sam might tie a perfect knot. 

Sam moves up, putting his palm flat on the centre of Charlie’s sternum, feeling the rise and rush and rhythm of the organs below. Sam feels the width and strength and weight of his own hand, presses on Charlie’s chest just a little too hard. Charlie watches him with the intense interest of an infant, the fragility of a baby bird. Sam drives his nails in neat rivulets across the dip and hollow of his abdomen. Sam drops his head to kiss his neck-not the lips, never on the lips, ‘cept for Dean-whilst Dean pick up the hand of Charlie’s closest to him, knotted to the bedframe neatly, and draws a perfect line from the tip of his little finger, down the side of his arm and right to the notch of his elbow with the tip of his knife like a shining pen, leaving a gleaming red seam, thin and scarlet and perfect.

‘What the fuck!’ Charlie backs away, but can’t move far, can’t fight, all bound up. Sam prefers to hold a victim down beneath him, but appreciates the ease of having them restricted. He also hates the word ‘victim’. He’s blessing this kid, to give him such beauty and art in dying.

‘Shh, shhh, Charlie, its ok. Everything’s gonna be okay, you’ll see’ Sam hums in lullaby tones.

‘You guys are fucking crazy, Jesus…’ Charlie struggles, kicks his bound legs, tugs at the rope. ‘Please…don’t, please don’t hurt me. Why would you want to hurt me?’

His eyes are wide and watery, looks so helpless. Sam runs the tip of his index finger across his skin, follows the scratches he made, bringing the blood bubbling up to the surface.

Charlie starts screaming, sobbing, and Dean grabs a t-shirt off the floor, supposedly to gag him, but Sam stops him.

‘Don’t, Dean. Wanna hear him’

Dean shrugs, discarding the shirt. Instead, he shifts up on the bed, pressing his hand over Charlie’s mouth, brushing his thumb back and forth across his mouth. Charlie continues to wail, but draws out into sobs, stringed sequences of chokes and please-please-pleases. Sam loves that’s its squashed, three bodies brushing together, feels beautifully intimate. Charlie’ll thank them, really, should feel so blessed. Sam knows he does.

Sam produces a knife. Charlie’s eyes roll back into his head and he mumbles something. Sam trails the very point of his knife in slow circles around Charlie’s ring finger, not quite enough pressure to break the skin. Sam circles, circles, circles, like a vulture, like a lion, like bird of prey. He slices the finger off cleanly and smoothly, so suddenly Dean’s eyes jerk up. Charlie cries out beneath the soft comfort of Dean’s hand.

‘S’okay, Charlie. Don’t you see? Everything’s okay’

The blood runs down Sam’s hand and off his fingers, and already he feels it cleansing him, purifying him. He copies the line Dean drew from finger to elbow on Charlie’s other arm, prefers it all to be symmetrical or at the very least, aesthetically pleasing. Charlie is mumbling crazed beneath Dean’s palm, and Sam imagines how his spit is slick on Dean’s hand.

‘Let him talk’ says Sam with a smile, pausing to tilt his head back for a second, relishing the atmosphere, sticky heat and scent of blood.

Charlie is mumbling over and over. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’

Dean, without Sam even needing to ask, takes his blade and relieves Charlie of his right hand ring finger, mirroring Sam’s work as Sam had Dean’s.

Sam joins in with Charlie, whispering the words with cool bliss that contrasts the fervent heat of Charlie’s prayer.

‘The Lord is with thee’

‘Dean, you gonna do it right if you watch me?’ Sam asks softly.

Dean snorts. ‘And when did my little brother ever do anything I couldn’t?’

Sam glows, reaches a bloodstained hand into Dean’s hair and kisses him.

‘Blessed art thou amongst women’ says Charlie, voice weak and lost and delirious.

Sam starts his knife between Charlie’s collarbones, and achingly slowly draws it in a shallow line, following the sharp slice of his collarbone and curving in a rise of his shoulder and down his left arm into his palm, pressing a little bloom in the centre of his hand. Sam counts the veins that his knife glides over; subclavian vein. Axillary vein. Cephalic vein. Brachial vein. Basilic vein. Median cubital vein. Radial vein. Median vein. Ulnar vein. Cephalic vein. Sam can’t touch them all and maintain a straight line, but he recites their names to himself anyway.

‘And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus’ Charlie gasps, his arm beautiful with perfect neat rivulets of blood running down.

‘So good, Sammy. So good’ Dean eagerly copycats Sam’s work on the other side, one half of a machine, one part of a two man operation. Sam’s head pulses watching his good boy brother bring blood up and over, watches the ruby red sing against his skin.

‘Holy Mary’ Charlie whispers.

Sam licks a splash of red salt tang off his lips, inspecting the nice slim line he’s about to develop.

‘This ain’t gonna hurt a bit, Charlie’ Sam’s words burn, kissing the start point of the wound at the clavicle. One little ‘please’ worms its way into the prayer.

Sam digs his knife heavy into the very start point of the wound he’s already created. Its elegant, violent twisting echoes an artery. Sam can’t quite remember the names of all the arteries like he can the veins; definitely parmar arches in the hand, brachial…

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God’

Sam carves like he’s wielding a paintbrush, revering the squelch of skin, the red hot rise of blood, the slicing-open, the falling apart, two sides of skin splitting away like the red sea.

‘Pray for us sinners’

Sam follows his line, driving the ice of the sharp blade along it, revealing red catastrophe, boiling superficial veins, thrumming pulses, sick heavy muscle. It smells sweet.

‘Now’

Dean’s caught up with him, two silver blades sunk deep into two arms held by two lovely boys, both achingly careful in guiding the sharp pain along the lines, splitting the two halves of exterior into two, peeling away the sweet and exposing a graceful inner of furious red, neat perfect lines, tangles of blue, throbbing heat.

‘And at the hour of our death’

Both blades meet the centre of Charlie’s hands, puncture deep, Christ on the cross. Sam is unaware when Charlie stopped speaking and it became just Sam reciting sacred words.

Sam lifts a blood soaked hand and brushes Charlie’s hair back from his forehead.

‘Amen’ He kisses his head. ‘Told you it’d be ok’ He thinks he’s still breathing, but certainly not for long, every venae cavae in his arms severed like electrical wire.

Sam’s blade dances under Charlie’s jaw, finds the spot where a weak pulse might reside. The weapon follows along, keeping Sam’s chosen theme of perfect lines and butterfly symmetry. He rests it central on the sternum, between the 2nd and 3rd ribs, and digs the deepest trench he can from the tough centre right through the abdomen where it sinks like snow in sun.

Dean smiles at his brother with a fond look as Sam presses a hand into the cavern he’s created in Charlie’s chest, winds his fingers around still hot organs and frees them unwrapping them with his fingers like untangling something from a ball of string.

‘Love you, Dean’ he mumbles, fingering the mass of violent red organs residing beside his hands inside Charlie’s chest.

‘Love you, too, Sammy’ Dean sits still, watching carefully as Sam removes the heart by way of separating it from its attachments. He raises it, streams and rivers and oceans of red falling down his arm, turning it in inspection, dazzled by its beauty.

Sam looks up at Dean, brings the twitching heart closer to him.

‘This is the superior vena cava’ Sam says like he’s teaching a child the alphabet (like Dean taught Sam the alphabet), pointing with his finger. His voice is so calm even though his blood is roaring and screaming, knowing he’s invincible, he’s the King, he’s fucking untouchable.

‘And this is the inferior vena cava’ He turns it slowly. ‘The muscle layer of the walls of the atria is very thin in comparison to that of the ventricles. These are the pulmonaries, this is where the aorta goes…kinda like a puzzle piece, huh’

Sam sounds so awed of this. Dean watches quietly with the wonder of a person watching someone they love talk about a passion.

‘You did good, Dean’ Sam sighs luxuriously, tucking the heart back in. He reaches up for Dean instantly, two bloody hands sliding up and down his brother’s neck and jaw and shoulders, gasping for a hungry kiss that might convey the wildfire Sam feels after killing. He wonders what it’s like for Dean, if Dean feels this pure crazed heat and sudden satiation like nothing else. Sam feel so pure and cleansed, the stains of blood washing out his bad.

Dean wonders if Sam knows the best part for him is seeing his brother’s bliss and relaxation. There’s electricity in his touch and motion when he kills, but such quiet rest in his eyes like Dean never sees at any other time.

Sam turns his knife over in his hands, soaked and running with blood. He leans towards Dean like he's about to kiss him, but meets Dean's lips with the filthy blade. 

'Christ' Sam moans, the blade glinting between Dean's lips, blood running from his mouth, a lurid mark of sin. His tongue runs the blunt edge of the blade slowly, teasingly, with a glint in his eyes that Sam knows is just him teasing, but still makes him so hot for his brother. When their mouths meet, Charlie's blood runs down Sam's throat. 

Dean rises over his brother, hot breaths sounding between their mouths, Sam’s hands grasping at him as if he cannot get quite enough. Sam pulls at Dean and flips him over, loves Dean beneath him, his, not quite as much as Sam. He lies Dean down across Charlie’s body, Dean sinking into the wet burning heat of all the exposed capillaries and arteries and veins and venae cava and muscles and tributaries and rivers and puzzle pieces. 

Dean's eyes are wide and golden and watchful, and for a second the way he looks up at Sam echoes the way Charlie did in such a sharp way, Sam forgets to breathe. But then Dean grins and kisses Sam so hard he can fucking feel him smiling against him, and it's gone, this warm mess of tangled body parts mangled beneath them is nothing like the pure holy reverence of their two bodies, so alive they cannot possibly be drawn away from life. Dean's hand slides from its place on Sam's neck and wanders, dancing across the material of Sam's now-gory t-shirt and pressing hard on the lowest part of his torso, just above the burning heat of his jeans that have been straining pretty much since Dean sliced Charlie's arm that first time. 

In hotel beds or the backseat of the car or pretty much anywhere else, there’d be at least a possibility of Dean topping, if Sam was tired or if Dean was in a bad mood and felt like feeling his brother beneath him. But coated in someone else's blood, there was no suggestion or question about it. Sam was always wild and fierce and glowing with glory. Dean could feel his brother's fingertips press into his hips hard, before he pulled his jeans off. 

Sam bent his head, pressing his mouth against the damp material of Dean's boxers, kissing. 

'Such a good boy' Sam murmurs, the vibrations of his speech with his lips on the outline of Dean's dick making his big brother whine. 

Dean grasps at Sam's hair, matted with sticky blood. 'C'mon, Sammy, don't tease'

Sam lifts his head and smirks, kneeling over Dean and stripping off his jeans. 

Dean groans dramatically. 'You mean to tell me you've been walking around all day wearin’ no underwear? Christ, Sam, you're killing me'

'Killing you, huh?' Sam fights his stupid grin for a darker look, seductive and snakelike. He rubs the head of his hard cock against Dean's ass through his soft cotton underwear, now as ruby red as the rest of them. Charlie's body is soft beneath them, Dean's whole back covered in thick dark red like someone had taken a huge paintbrush to it. 

'And what do you want me to do about it?'

Dean opens his eyes which had been fluttering. 'Sam. Just fuck me, wouldya'

Sam slides Dean's boxers off, pressing his lips to the head of Dean's cock, sucking on the tip, tongue lazily circling. 

'Sammy' 

Sam laughs, spitting as much as he can muster into his palm and rubbing it against himself in quick strokes. 

'You need me to start you off?' Sam gestures with two fingers. 

'Did I say fuck me, or did I say hang around?' Dean rubs his ass onto Sam's thighs. 'Might as well read me the sports highlights. Teach me how to square dance. Tell me about your favourite-' Dean's commentary is cut off, punctuated by Sam entering Dean without so much as a warning. Sam rocks the tip of his cock into Dean for a moment. Dean grasps at Sam's shoulder. 

'I ain't gonna start crying, Sam, cmon. Quit being a pussy'

'Oh' Sam growls, 'You sure are gonna pay for that'

He digs his nails into the flesh of Dean's hips, pulling Dean closer and making Dean see stars where the tip of Sam is hitting something inside him. Dean curls his feet around Sam's calves and he thrusts deep, his hips circling in a momentum matching the wildness he felt. 

A streak of blood perfectly parallels Dean's cheekbone. Sam reaches behind him, touches Charlie, touches Charlie's corpse and touches the pools of blood. He holds his gaze as he paints blood over Dean's mouth. 

'Love you so much' says Dean, for the second time today. He never says it when Dad is within a hundred miles. He kisses Sam with desperation, the foreign blood curdling in between their mouths. 

Sam bites Dean's lip, kisses his neck sloppily and with too much spit. Dean shifts, rocking forward and curving his back, Sam responding by driving his hips forward, Dean tight around his cock. 

'Jeeeesus, yeah, right there, Sammy' Dean cries, blood staining the inside of his mouth. 

Sam grabs Dean's shoulders and presses his knees into the mattress to fuck right up into Dean's prostate. Dean lifts his arms up and curls them around his neck, pulling Sam close into him, and suddenly Sam wants to cry, feels so sweet and loved and in love, wants to protect Dean and be protected. 

'Sammy' Dean practically sobs hot into his neck, fluttering an idle kiss, his cock wet against Sam's bloody shirt. 'Sam-God, just...'

Sam kisses Dean so fiercely he'll burst, both of them burning as Sam grasps his thighs and slams with crazed force into Dean until they're both sticky with blood and cum, Sam's filling Dean and Dean's dribbling over Sam's already ruined shirt. 

Sam bends his head to lick a stripe from the inside of Dean's thigh, thick white and thin red congealing together. 

Dean pants, shoving Sam's head away. 'God, Sam. So good to me. So good' 

Sam smiles genuine and wide, so much so that for a second Dean swears it's a freckled kid with gaps in his teeth and a choppy fringe where he let his big brother cut it in the kitchen, not a strong man who towers above him and slits throats for kicks. 

Sam pulls his jeans back on and Dean yawns with a huge stretch, smiling, glowing, thick with blood. 

Dean follows eventually, dressing calmly like he’s just got up for work, as though his shirt doesn’t stick to his back with the wet of the emptied guts of the corpse beneath them. Sam kneels above the body and removes the lungs, the heart once more, the pancreas, the liver and the little spleen. He arranges them around Charlie’s head and shoulders neatly spaced out, like a shrine, like an aura, like a chakra.

Sam stands and Dean reaches up for him, tugging at him, and pulls him into such a sweet kiss Sam feels dizzy. 

Dean grabs the bottle of bourbon off the side and pours it over the bed. There's probably tons of other DNA-hair on the chair, fingerprints on the glass, and such-but this just feels right to do, feels more special. A sort of worship. He touches the tip of the flame from his lighter to the doused sheets, and they watch for a minute as Charlie glows and blazes. 

Then, hand in hand, sweaty, dirty, sinful and damp with blood, they walk from yet another mar on their goodness, step into the car and drive off into the night. 

*

September, 2000  
Rocky Hill, Connecticut

Dean is blazing with fury, such anger that Sam never sees. He knows it’s just because someone died who didn’t have to, that he’s not really mad at Sam, but he can’t help but fear the rage boiling in his brother as he crashes through doors exiting the asbestos-rich warehouse they’re lost in like a spooky maze. 

Dean’s holding the body in his arms, one of the kid’s arms trailing and a stream of blood leaking from a corner of his blue mouth. His guts are spilling all over Dean’s shirt. 

Unceremoniously, Dean dumps the mutilated body in the tall grass as soon as they escape the dank wood of the sinking building, stepping out into twilight. 

‘Dean-‘ Sam begins.   
‘I don’t get it’ Dean says flatly. ‘I left you with the kid, and he was fine. The curse could’ve kicked in in the time I left you alone-unlikely, but it could’ve-but…none of the others…it shouldn’t have been this bad this quick. What happened, Sammy?’ But his voice has no nuance, no question or falter, and Sam fears the worst, fears that Dean already knows. 

He regards his brother cautiously as he salts the body-Sam doesn’t dare ask about the family. Maybe Dean’ll light him on fire, too, erase the burden of his sick, sick brother. 

Dean doesn’t say anything else. His anger is silent and searing, and he stalks away from Sam with a predatory walk. Radio Rocky Hill or whatever the hell the station is plays Semi Charmed Life, one of Sam’s favourite songs, but Dean turns it off with a sudden jerk. The drive is long and horrific, every speed bump soared over a sharp twist in Sam’s stomach that says Dean is going to finally tell him where to get off. 

Sam has to run up the stairs in the motel to keep up with Dean, and something snaps in him as the door swings open. 

'I don't get it, Sam! How did that kid end up dead?' He chokes, speaking way too loud for this topic in a thin-walled motel. 

Sam is quiet, follows Dean obediently into the motel room, the bathroom door swinging shut behind him, Dean's angry whispers growing louder and heated as he realises John isn't anywhere here. 

'Answer me, Sam!'

Sam can't. He can't. He's already sick to Dean, already an abomination, and this is the only thing worse than wanting his brother to fuck him. This is murder. This is what Dean works so hard to stop, works so hard to purify the corruptions of the darker side of the world. 

'I-I'm sorry, Dean-I-' his hand shakes, he can't meet Dean's eyes. He isn't sorry though, isn't sorry that he sliced that kid so good and sweet, surgical and methodical, tore him apart with beautiful precision. He's just sorry that Dean had to see. 

Dean lunges forward, bringing them closer in the already tight bathroom. He shoves Sam into the wall with a clatter, so hard Sam feels all of his bones break. The same wall that Sam had just the other day pressed Dean up against with matched force and sucked him off, only Sam's shove had been wild and funny and glorious, Dean's was just fury. 

'You gonna tell me what the fuck went on back there, Sam? I needed you. I needed you, and that kid didn't need to die. So where were you, huh?'

No translation needed. Sam knows what he means. 

Sam swallows. Dean's eyes are blazing, even now when his rage is so huge, Sam is wildly turned on, conflicted between admiring Dean in the usual way he admires people, assessing how he might delicately lift their skin with a blade or calmly strip their veins, admiring Dean in the ravaging, ferocious way of such illicit romance. 

'Sammy' Dean says, utterly angry but still pausing to soften for his brother. 

'I did it' says Sam. 

'You wanna explain?' Dean asks, still furious, but his grip loosening on Sam. Sam knows he isn't really all that angry with him, just upset that someone had to die. He's going to kill Sam, really kill him. 

'I killed him'

Dean blinks, hard and heavy, licks his lips languidly. He lets out a strangled laugh, a weird cough, a forced noise. 'Shut up, Sam'

'Dean' Sam summons all his gravitas into the word. 'I killed him'

'So why didn't you tell me that before? Sam?' Dean's eyes are crazy, flickering all over Sam's face with the madness of a candle at night, unable to fix on his brother's eyes for too long. 

'Because-because I didn't...I didn't have to kill him, Dean' He looks at his brother, suddenly so small and fragile, suddenly Sam wants to protect him. 'I wanted to. I had to. He was there and so I killed him'

'No you didn't, Sammy' Dean's words are garbled, hot and thick and rising up to fill the space of the dusty room. 'You didn't mean to, wasn't your fault, tell me the truth Sam, y'didnt, can't, Sam-'

'Dean, please' Sam begs, grabbing at his brother to hold him up from sliding to the floor, tears blurring both eyes because Sam knows Dean'll go now, the only thing he wants and needs more than blood on his hands. 

'Sam. Sam, tell me you didn't' Dean whispers, a soft caress at Sam's neck with the side of his hand, a touch reserved usually for people who deserved such things. 

'Dean. I can't-I can't help it. It's everything you aren't, Dean. I kill good people. I like it. I fucking need it, Dean' he whispers, voice cracking a thousand times, a blade in marble, not splitting down the middle but splintering slowly. 

Dean sinks heavier in his arms, breathing his oxygen. 'No, no, Sammy. You're good, you're so good...'

'Dean' Not a warning or a plea or a prayer, but hopeless, everything is lost. 

Dean hoists himself up, pushes Sam away weakly and Sam feels it so much harder than every other shove away Dean's ever given him, out of pleasure or irritation or disgust. This is it, this is endgame. 

Sam waits for the shouts and the punch or the crack of his own neck, but instead Dean sinks to the floor and sobs, wretched and awful and the most haunting sounds. Sam wants to hurt whatever hurt Dean, forgets it's himself. Dean cries so hard, like a child, whispering Sam's name on the grotty bathroom floor. Sam just stands above him, suddenly so tall, suddenly the oldest. Dean cries himself raw and sick and choking, gasping for air. 

When he's done wailing, Sam sinks to the floor beside him. He waits for the anger, the sadness, the goodbye. Dean reaches out and laces Sam's fingers into his own shaking hand. They sit on the floor for hours, just being, Dean’s fever sinking into shaky silent tears. 

There's years of road before them. Dean is quiet and barely sleeps, refuses to let Sam take the wheel even as dark shadows congregate beneath his eyes. Sam pretends he's sleeping on the front seat when Dean shakes and whispers to himself, but he doesn't cry about it again, not to Sam's knowledge. 

It's maybe a week or two after the awful confession, after Sam heaps onto his brother such awful darkness and drags him down with the weight of it. Dean pulls the car over and they sit at the booth in some fast food place and Dean says, 'I wanna see you do it'

Sam chokes on his food, thinking maybe Dean's gonna finally touch him again, but his brother's eyes are stormy and weighted. 

'Do what?' Sam leans in. 

Dean glances up, admiring him with such a heavy gaze, assessing. 'Kill someone'

Sam swallows carefully, feeling Dean's knee glance off his own. 

'Wanna see you do it, Sammy'

'No.' Sam says, sure he means it before he even registers he's saying it. 'Dean, no. Means so much to me that you're still here, but I won't let you'

'Sam, you can't tell me-'

'You won't want to look at me, Dean' Sam shakes his head, can't even look at Dean now. 

'Sam, I killed a person when I was 13 years old. You really think-'

'It's not the same, Dean!' Sam cries, terrified of this, bringing the awful back into reality, like voicing it makes it real. 'You had to! They weren't even human at the time, infected, you had to kill them or he'd've killed Dad. This is different Dean, this is wrong. It's not about saving'

But it was about saving, of sorts. Killing was Sam's salvation, his bread and butter. Murder was his prayer and worshipping the snap of spines and rush of blood and slivers of skin was his piety, taking lives was the blessings brushed across his head, the lasting gasp and choke and plea beneath him like a priest at the altar, the dying his saving grace, sad crumpled lifeless beauty, cold and pale and poignantly destroyed, that was his martyrdom and saviour and being, the name of grace on his lips and blessing him over and over and over, the feeling of scarlet on his hands enough to keep him alive for weeks. 

Sam looks up very slowly, meeting Dean’s wide eyes in an unintentionally coy way. Just looking at his brother is concession enough. If the roles were reversed, Sam knows Dean’d do anything for him. Anything at all. 

‘Remember when I was a kid and I got really into baseball?’

Dean smirks widely, knowing the story that’s coming and that its leading to an affirmative answer. 

‘Goddamn, I hate baseball’ 

‘Exactly. But I didn’t know that. You took me to every game, sat through every practice, watched it on TV with me. Even read me shit from that book you got about it Babe Ruth’ Sam laughs out loud. 

‘I stole the book, Sammy. And you were shit at baseball’ Dean grins. 

‘True. But you let me go on and on and on about it, got interested in it just to enjoy it with me.’ Sam nudges Dean’s knuckles with his fingertips, and breathes the biggest sigh of relief when Dean knots their fingers together, finally touching again.   
‘So you’re gonna let me Little League your murder?’ Dean says, in such a way that Sam can’t help but laugh. He wants to say no, he really does, but Dean’s head is tilted, eyes gleaming gold, hair all sleepy and mussed up and Sam’s chest burns with how in love he is with his brother.

‘Alright. Anything’ Sam pauses, about to stop and thank Dean for staying, praise him for loving him so wildly and unconditionally, but the words falter on his lips and Sam realises they don’t need to be said. 

They haven’t touched in days or weeks or years, Sam can’t quite remember how long, but they leave the diner hand in hand like two small boys with only each other to know. 

*

 

Dean is cleaning Sam's wounds on the motel bed when they see Charlie's photograph on the TV. 

Sam jerks his head up from where is resting on the end of the bed, bare back sprawled out beneath Dean whose straddling him. 

'Hey! Look, Dean!'

'That's our boy' Dean laughs, leaning over Sam to grab the remote and click up the volume. 

'This story may be disturbing for some' Said the pretty newsreader gravely. 'Charlie Winters, 23, was found murdered in his apartment late on Thursday night after a fire alarm went off in his building. His body was badly burned, but according to forensics teams he died before being set alight. Whilst still alive, he was severely tortured and mutilated and investigations as to whether he engaged in sexual activity or was sexually assaulted by his murderers are still ongoing'

Sam twists his head to look at Dean, who chews his lip. Sam beams. 

'Witnesses saw Winters leave a local club with two young men aged both in their mid 20s. Intel tells us that police now believe these two may also be the murderers of Aaron James and Caleb Hartfield, two men in the same age range murdered in equally brutal ways over the past few weeks, as well as a multitude of other murder cases, unspecified by our source, that are possibly connected to these two men'

'Jesus, she's practically trembling just talking about us' Sam breathes, reaching behind him to grasp Dean's hand. 

Dean squirts more muscle rub into his palms and delves his fingers into his brother's knotted gold shoulders. He kisses over it, tasting the sour, burning tang of the salve under his mouth. 

'Worship you, baby boy'

'Dean, I wanna hear what they're saying 'bout us' Sam whines, but he's already resisting, rolling over and sliding beneath Dean. 

'Tell me if I'm hurting your arm' Dean whispers as he kisses his brother, touching lightly Sam's bruised shoulder. 

Sam shakes his head, reaching up to grasp for Dean, because sometimes just the kiss isn't enough and Sam needs hair knotted between his knuckles, skin scraped beneath his fingernails, fingerprints glued onto plains of muscle. 

'Sammy,' says Dean is such a way that Sam pauses. 'Did you-did you kill anyone at school-at Stanford?'

The direct naming of it startles Sam more than the question, and Dean genuinely avoids using the word, as though hearing it will snap Sam out of a stupor and sent him packing off to Palo Alto. 

They're in far too compromising a position for Sam to even think straight; Dean's legs slotted between his own, Dean resting on his forearms, Sam's fingers trailing up and down Dean's arm idly. 

'A few. Just to see what it felt like, if it was still the same-y'know, without you' Sam admits. 'It was always about you, I guess'

'And the sex' Dean smirks. 

'Well. Yes. I mean, obviously I needed to do it at some point, otherwise I'd've never started in the first place.' Sam lifts his eyes back up to meet Dean's. 'A couple of them-they looked like you'

Dean is slow, his breath humming, his reactions as though through honey. 

'Sammy?' 

Dean falls forward on his arms, folding onto Sam's chest. 

'You ever think about killing me?' He asks, voice plain and eyes wide and young, his hand resting right where he can feel the violent thrum of his brother's heart. 

Sam isn't sure what to say, but he's doing his best to stop lying to Dean. Doesn't need to have such sacred secrets anymore, not like before, not like murder and incest and Stanford, the unholy trifecta. 

'Yes' says Sam. 'All the time'

'Are you going to?' Asks Dean, and all of a sudden Sam is the oldest sibling, the protector, the boy with the power in his hands. 

'No' Sam says, voice thin and quiet and truthful. The air is draped in the darkness, like someone drew a curtain across the whole of Mississippi. It feels cold. A lesser man would feel the fear. 

'At least, not soon' says Sam, and the dark is broken. For a second, a moment, a minute they're brothers, when Dean starts laughing and kicks up at Sam, and Sam grabs his leg and wrestles him beneath him, both of them shouting and calling each other names. 

'You bitch' Dean snarls through the widest grin you ever saw, pinned down by Sam's knees straddling his hips. 

'Jerk' Sam taunts, kissing his chin and shoulder, peeling off Dean's t-shirt. 

'Sammy, goddamit' He chokes when Sam smooths over his nipple with a forefinger, mouthing it to leave a globule of spit. 

'You are such a fucking bottom' Sam says, triumphant. 

'Am not' Dean retorts in weak protest. 

'What's that, huh? Don't feel like getting fucked by your baby brother?' Sam grins wickedly, doing a totally girly thing of kissing a trail down Dean's chest, but sucking hard, because Dad isn't here and Sam can leave as much violent proof of his affection as he likes. 

He takes off Dean's jeans, leaving him laid out before him in just boxers, all sweaty and bronzed like some Greek Adonis. 

'Cmon, tell me you're mine, Dean' Sam states rather than pleads because they both know Sam has Dean well and truly under his thumb. 

'Put these in your mouth, sweetheart' Sam pushes one, two, three fingers into his brother's open mouth, relishing the lucrative sounds of suck and pop. He keeps holding Dean down with his dark eyes as he pushes two of them inside Dean, not bothering to tease or suggest, straight away thrusting his fingers inside him. 

'Cmon, baby. Gonna tell Daddy what a good little slut you are for me? Cmon, Dean. Tell your baby brother how much you want his cock inside you' Sam punctuates his sentence by adding a third finger, Dean's legs writhing beneath him as Sam pumps hard. 

'Sam!' Dean gasps, pressing his forehead to Sam's shoulder. 

'No one else could take it this hard, no one else takes my cock as good as you do, Dean. That's my boy. Cmon, tell me'. Sam whispers like a lullaby. 

'Sammy. Please'

'Just tell me'

'I'm yours. God, Jesus, please, I'm so-I'm yours, Sammy, no one else's. Won't let anyone else fuck me like you do. Please, Sammy, I need you'

'Such a good boy for me, such a good boy' Sam hums happily, kissing wetly at Dean's face. 

'Sam, fuck, just fuck me already, would you' Dean whines. 

'So fucking needy' Sam sighs dramatically, going to unbuckle his jeans but is interrupted by Dean's scrabbling hands, and so he allows his brother to remove his jeans and boxers, roughly shoves them down to around his legs. 

Sam's hand shakes slightly, less with the anticipation or nerves but with his power. Dean grunts as Sam skims the edge of Dean's thighs, soft and damp, with the tip of his cock. 

'Sammy' he wheedles. 

'I know, I know' Sam smiles, strokes Dean's hair back with his wet palm. 

'Don't-' he begins, but Sam cuts him off because he sees Dean grimace and knows that he hates having to ask. 

'It's ok. I won't be too rough' Sam promises, even though he can't help but shoot Dean a mocking look. 

'Shut up' Dean says, shoving at Sam's shoulder. 

Sam replies by shifting his hips up against the round swell of Dean's arse, burning heat of Sam's cock pressed hot between. 

'Just because I don't want you to fuck me raw, doesn't mean you can be a fucking tease' Dean sighs dramatically, leaning his head back on the wrong end of the bed with impotent flourish. 

Sam scowls, bites at the side of Dean's neck crudely, and slides into him with control and ease. Most of the time, Sam's head is too wild and crazed, too full of dark swirling heat for him to calm down and do anything but slam Dean against a wall and fuck him senseless, but days like this, dreamy, pale sun seeping through the curtains, Sam a little sleepy but dizzy on the high of death, he can pull himself back, draw apart, take care of Dean and watch him glow golden beneath him, writhe and sigh like some sweetheart rolling about in a field of daisies. 

Sam tastes orange juice and blood in the back of his throat, rolling his hips with careful rhythm as oppose to his usual wild thrusting. Dean's hands flutter and slide across the tight muscles of Sam's upper back and shoulders, lazy and loose, but still the strong heavy hands of his big brother. 

'God, Sammy' Dean's voice trails off, interspersed with breathy sighs, fingernails scrabbling down Sam's back. 

'Harder. Leave a mark' Sam mumbles absently, as though he dreamt the words. Dean obliges, scraping neat scarlet lines that sear hot on Sam's golden skin. 

Dean's legs fold up around Sam's waist and Sam shifts him upwards, forcing Dean to sit up onto Sam's lap, thighs on thighs, Dean's arms tight about him. The angle forces Sam's cock tight deep into Dean, hitting such a spot in Dean that he can't breathe for a moment. 

Dean's head falls forward onto Sam's shoulder, the warmth of their sticky skin meeting such fire, hands interlaced and they're suddenly holding hands so tightly it hurts, so fiercely. 

'I love you, I love you' Sam murmurs. 'Love you, love you, love you' He chokes on air and then takes a too big breath to counteract it, hands cupping Dean's face and kissing him long, soft, sweet, so much so that for a second they're fifteen and nineteen, teetering on the edge of something real, twenty two and twenty six, something real, but always loving. 

They never used to say it out loud. Sam doesn't remember really hearing Dean use the word ever, and Dean generally only recalls whispering it over Sam's crib or drunkenly crooning it in in his sleeping ear. But then Dean arrived at Stanford in the middle of the night with the words burning on the tip of his tongue, not knowing he was thinking it, but as soon as he saw Sam it all came spilling out. 

Dean smiles with grace, kissing the crisp rise of Sam's clavicle. 

'Lets do another one' Dean gasps, softness of his thighs sliding against the top of Sam's leg. 

'Kill again?' Sam smiles. 'Already?'

'Ah, you fuck me better' Dean grins, showing his teeth, interrupted only by a moan as Sam fucks him slow and gentle. 

'I always fuck you good' Sam says, even as his voice cracks, Dean using that wicked hip motion of his to grind down on Sam's cock. 

'I suppose' Dean sing-songs, clutching at the flesh of Sam's hip when Sam comes, always fucking first, Jesus, perpetually a fifteen year old boy cumming his pants under the touch of his big brother. 

Sam's suddenly exhausted, his motion sloppy and almost at a standstill, Dean's thighs running sticky. 

'Cmon, Sammy, you can finish me off better than that' 

'God, you're so bossy' Sam snorts, ignoring Dean's (vague) request and sliding out of him. 

He pushes Dean down with the flat of his hand, shifts his legs apart. 

'Alrighty' Dean concedes, and Sam snorts again at his fucking idiocy, shutting his up by licking a cool stripe of his tongue over the tenseness of Dean's hole, wet with Sam's cum, following up to the underside of his cock. 

'You ain't gonna last 30 seconds' Sam laughs, pressing a kiss to the base of his cock, sliding his wet mouth up it. 

'I give it a minute' Dean said indignantly, as though it cleared his honour. 

Sam swallowed Dean's cock in his mouth, lips wet and swollen from kissing, Dean's cock wet and swollen from being fucked. He let his spit run down the length, bobbing his head like a perfect little baby brother, resisting choking on the soft, sour taste of Dean's cock in his throat. 

'Sammy Sam' Dean fusses, reaching down to stroke his hair, wrapping a little around his fingers. He tugs on it slightly, even in this sweet solace of gentle fucking, still always a little bit rough. 

Dean, in his defence, lasts a good minute and a half to two minutes before his cum dribbles down Sam's chin and he raises himself up off the bed to kiss the taste from Sam's lips. 

Dean's about to say something, looking potently into his brother's eyes, dreamy, fingers rubbing into Sam's scalp. Sam waits as Dean's lips part, but he decides against speaking, just pressing a kiss to Sam's forehead. 

'You get some sleep, baby brother' He hums, happy little sound, content. 

'I'm all sweaty and gross' Sam gestures. 'And covered in your fucking mess'

Dean chirps. 'Nothing you ain't known before' He musses Sam's hair up like they're still kids. 

But honestly, Sam's so tired that he does little more than remove his jeans, replace his boxers and then he falls into the pillows, snoozing softly, just far enough in still that he's vaguely aware of Dean tucking a blanket over him and then sinking into the mattress beside him. 

Time is liquid and slides away beneath them. Soon, dusk is falling heavy around them and Sam can't sit still, dreaming that the sweetening stars about the car mean soon, soon. Soon he'll get to kill. 

'Calm down, Sammy' Dean grins up down at him from where they're melting into each other on the passenger seat by the side of some road. Dean knows, of course, has always had a knack for knowing if Sam needs a rest or food or to shoot something, even if Sam himself is undecided.

He glances across at the driver’s seat and Dean veers the car for what’s probably the hundredth time just to lean across and kiss Sam. At some point he just pulls the car over and they make out to Led Zeppelin in the Impala like its some evening in the late 90s. 

Dean's head is bent to his little brother, bowed as though in prayer, reverent to the meeting of their bodies, sin so irrevocable it is piety. He worships Sam like he deserves it, whispers mad words like eulogising. Sam is prayer. Sam is heaven. Sam is salvation.


End file.
